Dying Light 2 Stay Human

A sequel to Dying Light with a new protagonist, characters, and setting, featuring a new storyline that expands the game universe. The formula of "zombies, parkour, and survival," which made the original famous, has been reworked and many new mechanics have been added.

The prolonged development has left Stay Human as a game for the PS4/XOne generation: primitive surface geometry, outdated particle and lighting systems, lack of variety among plant models, zombies, characters, and enemies, and overall "blurry" graphics.

The world has experienced a catastrophe that struck Harran and its surroundings, while a developed vaccine halted the threat of new zombie outbreaks. However, secret experiments by scientists and the military on the Harran virus continued, a new strain escaped from yet another laboratory, quickly spread across the planet, and caused the collapse of human civilization.

As the world plunged into darkness and chaos, in Villador—a fictional city somewhere in Europe—order was maintained. Due to the many laboratories, it was surrounded by an impassable wall in case of a zombie apocalypse inside, and the city remained unharmed during the outbreak outside. But the happiness did not last long. A prototype vaccine developed by local scientists was aerosolized within the city, causing many residents to turn into zombies, and the vegetation to perish.

The events of Stay Human begin 20 years after the outbreak in Harran and 10 years after the fall of Villador. By this time, there was not a single place on the planet that had not been penetrated by the unfortunate virus. The survivors are few and huddle in fortified settlements scattered over hundreds of kilometers. Brave heroes, pilgrims, travel alone between them, completing tasks and delivering packages. Among them is the main character, Aiden Caldwell, who has come to Villador in search of his sister.

The open seamless world of Stay Human is twice the size of Harran and is entirely occupied by urban development with the inclusion of cathedrals, hospitals, radio towers, skyscrapers, factories, and other points of interest, interwoven with a network of roads, highways, and subways. Even more volume is added by several levels of "verticality" and a significant portion of buildings accessible for visiting inside.

Everything is just beginning to decay, allowing exploration of the architectural images of the city, running along facades and rooftops, and strolling through the streets. Villador is divided into two vast areas reflecting their essence: the Old Town with courtyards from the 18th-19th centuries and Central Loop with modern office and residential buildings. Nature does not wait and occupies the roofs of the city with vegetation, avoiding the poisoned surface.

Designers have crafted Villador to ensure smooth movement and parkour: buildings stand with "solid facades," and to cross wastelands, there are ladders, cables, ropes, bars, and trampolines, hooks for grappling hooks, and over time, paragliding and air trampolines become available. An excellent arena for free-running.

At the start of the game, three major factions are fighting for control over the city: Marauders "Renegades", free-spirited hippies "Survivors", and heavily armed authoritarian "Peacekeepers". Zombies flood the city, but they are more active at night, hiding during the day in dungeons and lower floors.

Despite the efforts and promises of Techland, the plot of Dying Light 2 falls short of the first part, lacking narrative logic, story coherence, and gameplay, full of inconsistencies and contradictions. The massive script and thousands of voiced dialogues without a roadmap turned out to be a set of quests and events. Only a small part of them will engage with the narrative and evoke emotions.

There are many characters, but all are random companions: they will tell about themselves, their lives, their future plans, and then disappear after completing a quest. Only the most charismatic friends, with whom Aiden will spend a lot of time chatting heart to heart, will be remembered. The antagonist is a stereotypical fool with a heap of contradictions, and the struggle against him in search of his sister turns into a soap opera by the end.

The dialogue system does not reveal its potential, offering a couple of lines and questions a la Fallout 4 . The promised choice is illusory — everything either returns to the tracks or ends up with nothing. The ending, the state of the world, and the fate of the characters will be determined by a handful of key decisions.

The gang war for Villador, which Aiden gets caught up in right at the beginning, remains somewhat in the background. The factions are stereotypical, lacking motivation and global goals, and the script will immediately clarify who is good and who is bad. Communication with them comes down to transferring important objects, which the hero fixes, opening up the city and completing side quests.

The atmosphere itself has changed. Survivors have come to terms with the risk of becoming zombies and have realized that life continues after the apocalypse. Campfire gatherings with a guitar, bars and drinks, simple joys of life, and a warm color palette in Stay Human have replaced the despair, fear, and catastrophe seen in Dying Light.

The gameplay of Stay Human is built with an eye towards MMORPG, adapted for solo play. Everything that participates in the gameplay has levels, ranks, or quality degrees, with auto-leveling controlling the balance, and possible fights are limited by the hero's development (it is impossible to defeat an enemy of a higher rank).

The protagonist's progression is divided into two branches — combat system and parkour, with experience accumulated during the corresponding activities. However, the necessary skill cannot be leveled up without developing stamina and health. As a result, the gameplay unfolds in the second half of the game, while the combat, where the main actions are available immediately, long surpasses parkour, which needs perks for smoothness and coherence to be effective.

There is a lot of gear. Weapons, armor, equipment, gadgets, consumables, and tools — all contain dozens of their own components (or blueprints for them) in one way or another, and they also need to be upgraded (up to 9 times!). The items and armor on the hero come with passive stats hinting at a particular build.

In search of high-quality resources and equipment, you will have to vacuum every inch. All collected resources go into a bottomless inventory, and from there, they are used to craft useful items, but only according to recipes. These can be bought from traders, found in the open world, and the most valuable ones can be obtained by completing story and side quests.

The combat in Stay Human is classic slasher style. No firearms, just slashing, chopping, smashing, hammering, and breaking, although for variety, you can shoot with a bow and crossbow, throw Molotov cocktails, and set mines. The arsenal is huge, and as you get more powerful variants, the weapons can be enhanced with elemental damage and several mods can be added. Old combat techniques and new ones, like blocking or parrying attacks, now come together in combos and allow you to counter a whole crowd of enemies at once.

Parkour has been changed to be more realistic. The hero has weight, actions have inertia, movement has a stamina reserve, and all super abilities — like double jumps, wall running, and hovering in the air — are explained by the lore. There are also parkour puzzles — you need to run at a certain pace and apply the right abilities.

Combat and parkour are needed constantly in freeplay. During the day, human enemies pour into the city, also skilled in close combat, blocking, parrying, and able to chase the player across rooftops. Encounters with them will make you sweat. At night, the undead crawl out from every crack, and fighting them has become more challenging and varied, especially due to new types of zombies. There are zombie chase levels a la GTA 5 , and by the third level, the game will unleash all the most dangerous creatures.

There are plenty of activities in Dying Light 2: main and side quests, additional tasks, farming missions, night runs for leveling up, challenges, and much more. Functionally, it includes well-known tower captures, clearing outposts, find-and-bring, catch-and-kill, collect-and-transport, repair electricity, communication, plumbing, or just talk to NPCs. The map is dotted with dozens of empty and repetitive quests, against which quests with short stories are worth their weight in gold.

To enhance the gameplay, co-op for four players is introduced. The story progresses for the host, while friends can only observe. However, the gameplay is completed together, faster, and more intensively, although the difficulty increases proportionally with the number of players. All found items and progress are counted separately and saved for each player.